Latest / Better Preaching Podcast / BP2 Season 1 Episode 10 – Great Sermons of the Restoration Movement | Dave Stone
Transcript
- Frank Weller: Back about a year ago when Dave Foust called me and asked me to preach, it was a very surreal moment because when he told me the text, I said, you know, that is really funny because my dad preached on that same text at a North American Christian convention and I would say that it is my favorite sermon that I ever heard him preach. And the more I talked to Dave Foust, the more we continued to stumble on to more and more coincidences. Dad's message was on a Wednesday night. It was here in Louisville, Kentucky. He was 44 years old at the time. To top matters off, it's very eerie because that week... Back 20 some years ago, Dad stayed in his hotel room for the first couple of days because he hadn't been feeling very well and he wanted to save his strength and so he didn't stand and he didn't walk around for a couple of days. And I can relate because ever since Bob Russell officially retired three days ago, I haven't been feeling very well. And I've been in the bathroom since Monday. It's nice to have Wayne Smith up here. It's always great to have Wayne. Appreciate Governor Fletcher. ⁓ The governor's got such a busy schedule and I really appreciate him working this in and it's kind of fitting to have Wayne. I did my internship with Wayne a number of years ago and then for a number of years when I was working while I've been in Southeast, Wayne would come over every Thursday to work on sermons together with Bob Russell. And Bob would write them and Wayne would drive from Lexington to Louisville and he would come over to pick them up. Now let me tell you, Wayne could have had Bob fax them to him. Wayne could have had Bob email them to him, but not Wayne. Wayne is a man of integrity. And when he steals a sermon, he's going to do it the old fashioned way. And so he would drive over and he would pick that up and we appreciate his extra mile efforts that he showed. I love this passage in Ephesians chapter four. And I love it because it is as relevant today as it was back in 62 AD when Paul's quill moved across some rough papyrus. And you know this passage, you are familiar with it. And the opening verses of our text talk about the gifts of service that Christ has apportioned to each one of us. And so we could talk about the gifts of service, because after all, this is one of the five major spiritual gifts passages in the New Testament. Or we could spend some time on the next verse and we could talk about the examples of service. According to the apostle Paul, our text says that church leaders are to inspire people to serve. And Paul says we are to prepare We're God's people for works of service. And so we could spend some time tonight stressing why the leaders have to get their hands dirty and be involved in serving and setting the example. That's very important. But that's not where we're gonna camp out either. Instead, I want us to concentrate on the final six verses as we try to determine what is the greatest benefit of serving together. What's the greatest benefit of serving together? And at first as I looked at the text, I thought maybe the greatest benefit of serving together is unity. I mean, let's face it, unity is a great benefit when you serve together alongside one another, it is a unifying experience. Look at verses 11 through 13. It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers to prepare God's people for works of service so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God. Now there's two kinds of unity that are cultivated when we serve. The first is that there is interpersonal unity. We build a strong bond with other people when we serve. Nothing breaks those barriers down like service does. And anytime you serve together with someone, you take the focus off of self and you place it on others. And you are humbling yourself. At the core of interpersonal unity is the word humility. My uncle Greg had cerebral palsy. He died a couple of years ago. He was a quadriplegic. He was an incredible inspiration to me. And he got around quite well because he had a wheelchair that was electric, but his speech was very difficult to understand. In fact, sometimes you would spend 15 or 20 minutes with him just trying to get one sentence deciphered. Several years ago, he went to a handicamp week for developmentally challenged people. It was held at the Country Lake Christian Retreat Center in Indiana. And one of our church members named John Miller served as an unpaid volunteer that week. And John had never worked with ⁓ developmentally disabled folks. These were uncharted waters for John. And he was assigned to my Uncle Greg. And so he was with Uncle Greg for four solid days. 24 hours a day. And one day he even took three of his friends and they took Uncle Greg down to the lake and they got this flotation device and my Uncle Greg swam for the first time in his life and he, I'm telling you, he loved it. But John Miller fed Uncle Greg every bite, gave him every drink, dressed him, took him to the bathroom. He did everything for him for four days. They have something that's kind of unique at Country Lake in that particular week. At the end of that week, they have the counselor who was a volunteer, they come up with the person who was the camper and they talk all about them. And then they ask them a question and they say, what was your favorite part of the week at camp? And invariably they always say the same thing. They always say the swimming. And they thought, it's gonna be tough to understand Uncle Greg, but you know, we'll all understand that it's swimming, so we'll be okay. So Uncle Greg rode up in his wheelchair and John went through talking about the entire week and he talked about taking him down to the lake and he said, we've nicknamed him the fish because he enjoyed it so much. He recapped the whole week and then it came time for the big question and he said, okay Greg, he said, what was your favorite part of the week? And everybody understood because Uncle Greg raised his arm and pointed his finger back at John and he said, you. And John said, ⁓ there had to be something else. I mean, was it the swimming? Was it the snack time? And again, Greg raised his hand and pointed back. And he said, you. Sometimes our acts of service seem so meaningless. They seem so mundane at the time, yet later we find out just how important they are. And even though John's life and my Uncle Greg's life were vastly different, a friendship had been forged. What created that friendship? Humble service. That is a major step toward interpersonal unity. Now another benefit of unity isn't just interpersonal, it is also inter-congregational unity. This is where we reach out across congregational and even denominational lines when we serve together. Hey, I'm not asking you to change your beliefs. I'm just asking you to serve alongside of each other. Maybe there's a Baptist church or a community church down the street with whom you could partner on a mission trip or on some project in the community. Or maybe together you decide that we're gonna build a habitat for humanity home for someone. Now your doctrinal beliefs may not perfectly align with the person you're working beside, but as long as the two by fours are perfectly aligned, they'll probably appreciate your service. Because in that particular setting, it isn't the place for a debate over some difference in scriptural interpretation. It is all about serving the Lord. And in so doing, please realize, you might be doing more than just building a house. you might be building a bridge to some other church, to some other person. And the spiritual discipline of service can encourage unity because when we aren't promoting ourselves, we can promote Christ. You know, back in October, I made my first visit to the Gulf Coast area. It was just a month after Hurricane Katrina had ravaged its way through. And I went down and I was looking for a place for our Southeast volunteers to be able to stay on their trips when we would send them down to help out. And with the Lord's help somehow, we stumbled onto this campground that was within a mile of the very feeding center that we were going to be setting up shop and helping them out. And we spoke with a man, his name was Earl. He was about 70 years old. He was a volunteer who would come down to help coordinate the relief efforts. He said they would love to have work groups from Southeast stay at the camp. And as we stood there, this gentleman quietly but intently explained to us why he had driven hundreds of miles down from the Northeast in order to come to the Gulf Coast area. He said, I was sitting in my home. I was watching the footage on television and he said, the more I watched it, he said, my heart was just pounding. And he said, I knew and I realized that I had to do something and that God wanted to use me. So he said, I drove down here in my camper. And he said, I'm living here and I'm working out of it. And Earl went on to explain that the camp where we were was jointly owned by the Amish and the Mennonites and that he had found incredible fulfillment through his service. And about that time someone came up to talk with him that needed to talk with him about a group and I knew Earl was going to have to leave but he was as he was walking away my curiosity overcame me and I blurted out I just said hey Earl I said are you Amish or are you Mennonite? And the eyes of this Christian servant began to well up and he said to me, I'm not Amish and I'm not a Mennonite. He said, I belong to a church that is just trying to be a liaison for people to get to know Jesus and his word. And as he headed off under my breath, I said, so do I. Because I do, and you do too. And you have the opportunity to somehow build a bridge with people. so that they might come in contact with the God of the universe through the person of Christ as revealed to us through God's word. Dave Fous referred last night and Steve White again today to Jesus' prayer for unity in John chapter 17. In the 20th verse it says, my prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message that all of them may be one. I watch a lot of sports. but not a whole lot of Christian programming. I must confess that in our home we watch more ESPN than we do TBN. I prefer to see purple hair on a maniacal fan in the stands rather than on the wife of a televangelist. Just trying to be honest, all right? But if you watch baseball, you watch basketball, you love sports, then you have often seen athletes wear a jersey that has the team name on the front and they have their own last name on the back. And why is this the coach who will remind his players we play for the name on the front of our jersey, not the name on the back? And in the heat of the competition, you make decisions on behalf of the team rather than the individual. In other words, there is a greater cause. And in this passage, it seems to suggest that the church is a team filled with all sorts of different names and labels. But ultimately what the apostle Paul wants you to know is that the only name that matters is the one on the front of the jersey, and that's the name of Jesus Christ. And when churches unite and place the focus on him, Jesus says, I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men to me. And when the church is serving together, it breeds unity. So maybe the greatest benefit of serving is unity. But not so fast. Keep reading in Ephesians chapter four and we're gonna find another benefit of serving together and that is maturity. Maybe maturity is the greatest benefit. And what a benefit it is to be able to mature in the faith. Look at verses 12 and 13. To prepare God's people for works of service so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. There is a controlling analogy or metaphor in this section of the passage that drives home the importance of maturing. You see, the church is called the body of Christ, and the body is to mature and to grow up. And in the Greek, it suggests that you are becoming a mature adult, a grown up. No longer are you a child, no longer are you an infant. But if I were to take your church and look at how you serve, Where would you end up on the spiritual growth charts? I mean, is your church a kindergarten church where the members serve because the leaders tell them to? Is your church a junior high church where the members serve just because they enjoy being with others? Or is yours a grownup church? You serve because you know that God enjoys it and you're doing it for Him. And one of the benefits of service is the majority of the time, as you look at this, you learn that maturity cultivates within people a desire to serve others. We have to understand as leaders that we don't just use people to get work done, we use work to get people done, to mature them, to complete them, fully mature adults, fully developed within and fully alive like Christ. Service grows that person closer to completion in Jesus. Now you might be thinking, okay, then how can I tell where my congregation is on the chart? How can I tell how mature they are? And Paul mentions at least two marks of maturity. The first is recognizing the truth. This was always very important to Paul. You'll recall that Paul sounds the alarm back in 2 Timothy chapter four, verses three and four. For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. Did you hear about the polite burglar? This guy prided himself on the fact that he would break into homes without waking up a soul, he would rob them blind, and then he would just leave a little note, sign the polite burglar, because he had not roused them from their slumber. He did this solid for 10 straight years without ever being caught until one time he was in a couple's bedroom, and all of a sudden he just accidentally dropped a piece of jewelry and it clanked and it awakened the couple and they were startled and they saw his gun and they screamed out. And he said, ⁓ he said, ⁓ man, this is terrible. He said, this is terrible. I'm the polite burglar and now you guys have seen me. He said so I'm gonna have to kill you and the woman gasped. No, no, no. He said ma'am before I shoot you He said what is your name? He's personal and polite and so she said my name is Elizabeth. He said ⁓ man, that's terrible. He said why my mom's name was Elizabeth. He said I can't shoot you turned the gun on her husband said, what's your name? He said, my name is Bill, but my friends call me Elizabeth. Bill is not the only person who has a tendency to say what he thinks itching ears want to hear. And we are surrounded by a culture that does just that. And there even some preachers who enjoy doing it as well. Look at Ephesians chapter four verse 14. Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men and their deceitful scheming. You see, a mark of maturity is the ability to separate the truth from falsehood. But Paul says the second sign of maturity is speaking the truth. Look at Ephesians chapter 4 verse 15. It says, instead speaking the truth in love. You see, it's not enough to just recognize the difference between false doctrine and truth. That's a good place to start, but it's a sad place to finish. And Paul says, you speak the truth in love. It's a combination. It's not love without truth. That's sentimentality. It's not truth without love. That's dogmatism. It's speaking the truth in love. That's Christianity. And if I can be completely candid with all of you tonight, I would characterize our two fellowships as being on target doctrinally, but lacking in the areas of service and unity. In fact, in the past 100 years, we've each been quite proud of our doctrinal stance in the truth area. It's the love area where we tend to struggle. That's not just in our dealings with one another. That's also in our dealings with others as well and other fellowships as well. And in some instances, in our quest to be right, we have forgotten... to earn the right to be heard, an opportunity that could have easily been accomplished had we chosen to serve together rather than focus upon our differences. In my experience is that God won't bless animosity. God won't bless bickering over trivial differences of opinion. We find ourselves in the midst of a cultural war. People are debating same-sex marriages, abortion on demand, removing prayer from graduations, taking God out of the Pledge of Allegiance. Society sees the Bible as just another book. And for us to question the validity of any faith is deemed intolerant. It's a different world and it is downright discouraging just how much ground Christianity has lost in the past 10 years. However, it's in the midst of this moral upheaval that some churches have forgotten who the true enemy is. Now your enemy is not the church down the street. Your enemy is Satan and he has come to kill, to steal and destroy. And he is alive and well. And yet still... The Christian churches roll their eyes at their acapella friends and they piously mumble their legalists while the churches of Christ point back and piously whisper their liberals. And all the while, Satan laughs in Jesus Christ. About 30 years ago, about 30 years ago, the late Louis Foster prophetically said, there's coming a day when Christendom will be divided into two camps, those who believe the Bible is God's word and those who don't. Well, friends, I've got a news flash for you right now in June of 2006. That day has arrived. and we are surrounded by believers who say Jesus is the Lord of their life and the Bible is the word of God and yet instead of joining forces we put up fences and Jesus has gotta be up there in heaven saying, hey team, hey team do you realize time is running out? It's the ninth inning, there are two outs. Would you stop focusing on the names on the back of your jerseys and realize the name that's on the front, Jesus Christ. And here's what I'm suggesting. Here's what I'm suggesting. It is something that every Bible-believing church can do without compromising her beliefs or her heritage. We can leave our petty differences behind us. We can roll up our sleeves and together we can start serving others so that lost people will follow you or me to your church or my church to learn about a man named Jesus. You say, what does speaking the truth in love have to do with service? Well, serving is an expression of love. Your words take on a much deeper meaning when placed against the backdrop of an outward expression of selfless service. Of course, that service is not only maturing the person, but also the people who are being served. A number of years ago, our church helped start a pregnancy crisis center right down here in the downtown area. and we recently opened another building downtown where inner city single moms can pursue their GED. They can take a Bible study. They can take classes in parenting or nutrition or fitness training, and it is so exciting to see the excitement in their eyes. And while the moms are in the classes, their kids are being taught Bible lessons by Christian ladies. And this last week, a volunteer teacher called on an eight year old girl from the inner city, her name's Brandy. They called on Brandy to pray for their lunch and the little girl said, I've never prayed before. And she was quite unsure at first, but she said that she would give it a try. This was her prayer. I swear to God, thank you for our food. And then she added, I love you God because you are my best daddy. If you are on the front line serving, you get to see how the Lord is maturing you. And you get to see how it is that people are serving all around you. And the church ought to be a maturing church, serving outside her walls, reaching out to the unchurched so that they might know God as their best daddy. No wonder Jesus said in Mark chapter 10, verse 45, for even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. What a blessing. Serving grows up our faith. So maybe, just maybe, the greatest benefit is maturity. But there's one more benefit that Paul gives us and believe it or not, I think it's more important than maturity. or unity. I would suggest that the greatest benefit for those who serve together is your testimony. When we speak the truth in love, we mature and we grow up into the head. Your service is a witness when you imitate Christ. Paul says we grow up into him. What a testimony to other churches and especially to unbelievers. Jesus, of course, was a servant and one of the most powerful stories in the gospel is in John 13 when Jesus washed his disciples' feet. And I actually toyed with the idea tonight of just having a massive foot washing service here. And I thought that might be kind of cool just to reenact and the Church of Christ people could wash the feet of the Christian Church people. And I thought what an expression of unity that comes from serving the maturity we show by serving. But then you know what? My mind drifted back to a Promise Keepers Conference in the mid 1990s in Indianapolis, Indiana. It was jam packed and Jack Hayford said that morning, gentlemen, This morning we are going to ascend the mountain and hear from the Lord. And because the ground that we're going to stand upon is holy, out of reverence to God, I want every one of you to take your shoes off. So every man did. Well, the RCA Dome is an enclosed dome. It had rained that morning. And so everybody's socks were wet and their shoes were wet and they were partially dried. And now about an hour later, this gentleman wanted us to show our respect and offer a holy fragrance unto the Lord. But we offered a fragrance. I'm not sure how holy it was. Ladies, have you ever been in the room when one man took his shoes off? Multiply that by 60,000. People were dropping like flies. People were attracting flies. And if tonight, if we wash feet, I'm just not sure that the testimony would come through. But let's be honest, service in the year 2006 probably won't take the form of foot washing services. These days it may be caring for a relative with Alzheimer's or serving at the homeless shelter or counseling the troubled teen. The world is waiting to see a Christian who momentarily escapes from their Christian community and presses the pause button on their to-do list and chooses to be a servant. And we never look more like Christ than when we serve. My friend Rick Rissol tells of the time when he and his wife were in a restaurant. And after several visits by the waitress to their table, Diane said to Rick, did you see the tattoo on the waitress's hand? And Rick said, no, I haven't seen it. And on the next visit, sure enough, you saw it. It was a tattoo of a cross. It was right on the back of her hand. And so every time she would pour a drink, every time she would set down a utensil, every time she would pick up a plate, every time she was there, they saw that tattoo and they saw the cross. And Rick said, you know what, it was just so simple. Every time she served. I saw the cross. And that is what God is inviting you to do. Every time you serve, wherever you go, you represent God. And the symbol of the cross is an ongoing reminder of that day when Jesus was the ultimate servant. And when we serve, we point lost people to the Christ of the cross. What a powerful testimony. Serving is a cameo of the gospel. And Paul says in Ephesians chapter four verses 15 and 16, instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the head, that is Christ. From him the whole body joined and held together by every supporting ligament grows and builds itself up in love as each part does its work. Paul says we are parts of the body. We are connected with the head, that is Christ. When we serve, we become like Jesus. The walk matches the talk. And serving together is a great example because we show and we share our love with others. And acts of selflessness bounce a reflection of Jesus to a world that is desperately straining to catch a glimpse of him. What is your example saying? Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapter 11 verse one, imitate me as I imitate Christ. And if you've been a Christian for very long, then you know that you live in a fishbowl, especially if you are in church leadership. And from a distance, people are watching your language, they're watching your service, they're watching your habits. A few years ago, we had an intern at Southeast, a guy by the name of Cameron McDonald. He was a great guy, he young, he was extremely talented, he was good looking, he was a great athlete, he was a committed Christian. But I was embarrassed to find that on a Saturday from one o'clock to five o'clock he was at the Middletown Government Center attending traffic school for a speeding ticket. And I was especially embarrassed because he sat right next to me in the class. He walked in and said, what are you doing here? said, man, what are you doing here? And I'm, you know, I don't know if you preachers can relate to this. I personally believe that on a preacher, the last part of your body to get saved is your right foot. And I could probably document that somehow. Now I don't know where you're from, but here in Kentucky, in order to get the points off of your record, at the beginning of a class, you go to traffic school for four hours, and you endure that. They take the points off your record, and then you can drive with freedom all over again. But the way they do it in Kentucky is they call each table up, one at a time, with about four people, and you walk up, and you get your driver's license out. They write down the driver's license number, and then they can take your points off. When my group got called up, was standing up at the front of the room, and while I was standing there in the silence of the moment, I heard the two most frightening words I'd ever heard in my life. An older woman in the middle of the room said, Reverend Stone? We'll talk at the break. Peace out. Yeah. ⁓ There were about 30 people in the class. In addition to my intern, no lie, at break time I met four other Southeast Christian members I'd never met before. So I wrote the ticket off on my taxes. Business expense, you know. But here's the point. ⁓ Yeah, that's what my wife said too. ⁓ People are watching. Impressionable teenagers are watching in your neighborhood. Newcomers to your church are watching you. So what's your testimony? You see, they watch how you drive, they watch how you live, they watch what you say, and they watch how you serve. And Jesus is the example. And his ministry was focused, but mine at times is Helter Skelter. He saw people as opportunities to serve. I can tend to see them as interruptions in my schedule. He had no problem washing feet. If they were dirty, he saw a need, he would take care of it. And yet I can be so put out over that late night hospital run, or that elderly person that just feels that they have to shake my hand at the end of every service. And what I'm saying is that I've got a long ways to go in this area. And I wonder what might happen if I were to pray to God and say, for once in my life, Lord, I'm not gonna be concerned with who gets the credit as long as the glory goes to the Lord. Let me close by telling you of a servant that our family encountered when I was a child. It was in June of 1967. Our family was returning to Cincinnati from a vacation trip to the Wisconsin Dells. We were driving through Illinois in a rainstorm and suddenly my dad saw the car that was coming toward us begin to hydroplane and they came across the center line and basically they hit us head on and we had a head on collision. And one person was killed in the other car and it is to this day one of my most vivid childhood memories. But let me read to you what my father later wrote about that experience. He said, my wife, Gwen, was the most seriously injured in our car. She had a skull fracture and was taken to the intensive care unit at the nearby hospital in Bloomington, Illinois. My boys both escaped injury, and a nurse from the emergency room took them home with her until my brother-in-law could come from Chicago to get them the next day. In the impact, my head hit the steering wheel and my glasses were shattered. The doctors surgically removed 21 pieces of glass from my eyes. They then put medicine in my eyes and they bandaged them. Now I want you to get the setting. Here I was in a strange town, many miles from home. My boys were with someone that I didn't know. My wife was down the hall fighting for her life in an intensive care unit. My eyes are bandaged shut and I can't see anything. and the first person to come to visit me took my hand. I will never forget that handshake. Brother Stone, I said yes, and he introduced himself and he told me that he was an elder in the Church of Christ there in Bloomington. He had heard on television about the accident and the newscast had said that I was minister of the Western Hills Church of Christ in Cincinnati. And he wanted to see if he could help. Through the course of conversation, the more we talked, I mentioned that the church where I served was one of the churches of Christ that did use instrumental music. He said, I thought that might be the case, that doesn't matter. We wanna help a brother in Christ. ⁓ And us they did. ⁓ elders brought communion to my wife ⁓ her two weeks in the hospital. ⁓ church sent flowers to us. ⁓ kept our relatives in their homes. ⁓ I stayed in their home for several days after being released until Gwen was able to travel and I learned that we were all a part of one family, God's family. Years ago. My parents told me the name of that servant, but to be honest with you, I don't recall it. You see, I've forgotten the name that was on the back of his jersey, but I'm pretty certain what the name was on the front. Mother Teresa said, preach the gospel, for I am a small pencil in the almighty hand of God, writing a love letter to the world. Write it well.